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By Ruffin PrevostReuters • Saturday May 11, 2013 7:22 AM

OLD FAITHFUL, Wyo. — Snow removal could hardly be considered a glamorous government function,
but it was cause for celebration yesterday in Yellowstone National Park as dozens of state, local
and federal dignitaries gathered to mark the on-time seasonal opening of the park’s roads.

After federal budget cuts known as sequestration delayed annual snowplowing efforts by the
National Park Service, two small Wyoming towns on the fringe of Yellowstone organized a private
fundraising drive that helped cover the cost of clearing the roads.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead joined Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk and others at Old Faithful
Lodge yesterday to celebrate a cooperative effort that helped erase the park’s most-visible effect
of federal budget cuts and marked the opening of all major roads within Yellowstone.

Mead approved a plan in March that allowed roughly $125,000 in mostly private money to pay for
Wyoming Department of Transportation plows and for workers to clear parts of the east entrance road
from Cody and the south entrance road from Jackson.

Although most July and August visitors would not be concerned whether roads were plowed on time
in May, the local funding assist meant that other “ripple-effect” cuts to visitor services will not
be necessary, Wenk said.

Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park are major attractions in Wyoming, helping
to draw nearly 8.7 million visitors a year to a state where tourism is the second-largest industry,
Mead said.

Local leaders had feared that a late start to the summer tourist season would result in
lingering misperceptions nationwide that the parks were either closed or staffed by skeleton crews.
The two parks provide more than 10,000 jobs for the Jackson and Cody communities.

Advance bookings for Yellowstone are up over last year, said Rick Hoeninghausen, vice president
for sales and marketing at Xanterra Parks & Resorts, the park’s primary lodging and activities
concessionaire.

In Grand Teton, an effort to trim $700,000 from the last half of the fiscal year’s operating
budget could mean closing campsites, toilets and other facilities. But as in Yellowstone, local
groups are stepping in to help.